One of the west's biggest shopping, hotel and leisure complexes will be built on a 13-acre site on the Galway road in Tuam, Co Galway, if a planning application is successful. The application has been submitted by the development company, Royal Rock (Tuam) Ltd. The company is headed by Galway-based businessman Mr John Mannion, whose Royal Rock (Galway) company has built extensively in the Ballybane and Liosban industrial estates in the city.
The venture is a departure for the company into mainstream commercial development, comprising almost 10,000 square metres of retail space, a 100-bed hotel and 760 square metres of offices.
According to Mr Mannion, the centre and hotel are expected to employ 500 people in high season, with additional jobs in the service sector. He says the development will provide a major boost to a town hit hard by unemployment and that property prices have already increased in anticipation of the development.
The planning application includes plans for a shopping centre with a 1,000 foot frontage on the busy national route, which will be redeveloped to incorporate extra lanes to cater for the expected increase in traffic.
The glass-fronted, two-storey centre will be will be finished "to the highest standard", according to the company. It will have a slate roof and limestone cladding. There will be parking for over 1,000 cars.
The company is negotiating with a prospective anchor tenant for the shopping centre who, it hopes, will take out a lease on a 45,000 square foot store. The plans also include a further 25 units, incorporating a pharmacy and health centre, a bank, and a building society.
The company also hopes to build a 5,000 square foot "diner-style restaurant" on the Galway road which, it says, has the potential to be the west's answer to the Mother Hubbard diner on the Dublin-Galway road.
Plans for the 100-bedroom hotel include a large function room with the capacity to cater for 700. A leisure centre with gymnasium, jacuzzi, steam room and swimming pool is also envisaged.